KAPAI'S CORNER: For starters, it's MowOh, not MowWow

My mate Mauao has been taking a bit of a hiding lately with fires and floods and is looking as if he needs a good rest.
This majestic icon that stands guard to the entrance of Tauranga Moana has a special significance to us all that live here but there still seems to be some resistance to pronouncing its correct name and what that name means.
I find it rewarding to see and hear our tamariki, both Maori and their European cuzzies, who have a good grounding in the origins of Mauao and that will hopefully filter up to their older whanau and friends.
Last night I was reading bedtime stories to a group of Action Station students staying at our marae and when it came to question time I was astounded to hear their good grasp of local Maori protocol and tikanga. So I thought it almost unfair they had been privileged to learn these things and many locals have not had that same chance. So here goes with "Once upon a Mauao".
Firstly, it is pronounced Mauao "MowOh" as in Mow that rhymes with Bro and Oh that rhymes with Go. Not Mauao "MowWow" as in Mow that rhymes with cow and Wow that rhymes with how.
Okay, that's a good start and you will find a much warmer response when you pronounce it correctly not just from tangata whenua but from my old mate Mauao himself.
Mauao means "Caught by the morning light" and legend has it that back in the olden days, long before cars and cows and false teeth and man-made reefs, there lived these three mountains up behind Tauranga.
One was called Puwhenua, she was a major babe, good looking mountain; another was called Otanewainuku, a handsome hunk of a hill, and the third was the slave mountain without a name that would become known as Mauao.
Anyways, Mauao was real keen on Puwhenua the major babe looking mountain so he sent the Patupaiarehe (bush fairies) over with a love letter that was immediately "returned to sender". As we all know, nothing is more persistent than a lonely, in-love, nameless slave mountain and the patupaiarehe postman were sent off on another hikoi of hope next door to Puwhenua, the pretty mountain.
Yes! You guessed it, another knock back and by this time the back 'n' forth bush fairies were telling Mauao to give it a rest, bro. Turns out the pretty Puwhenua was seriously checking out O tane wainuku, the handsome hunk of a hill to her right, and poor old Mauoa wasn't even registering on her radar.
Anyways, enough is enough when it comes to rejection and a mountain can only be turned down so many times so Mauao made his way down through the Waimapu Valley and out toward the sea where he would drown himself.
But, and it was a big but. No, not Puwhenuas. Just as he was about to take the big dive into the drink, up came the morning sun and the bush fairies who had towed him all the way down like a tough tugboat under cover of darkness, let go of the ropes and yelled out "where are out of here bro".
So poor old Mauao, brokenhearted and in full view of his lost love Puwhenua and her beau Otanewainuku, is where he is today looking out to sea. A sea that could not help hide his pain of a broken heart.
And that is the legend that gives Mauao its name today and its meaning "Caught in the morning light". If you want to hear this legend as you walk around Mauao contact my Cuz Mary from Mauao Adventures and get the real deal.
As to the validity of the legend, for me what does it matter? Just like Santa Claus if it brings hope, joy and happiness to those that believe in it then why not.
Personally, I am thankful that those blingin' bush fairies never made it in time to drown Mauao because today I can look to my mountain that has been there for me from day one. In times of happiness and in times of sadness. I have walked around him and up him. I have looked down on him and I have watched him rise up from the horizon as we approached by cruise ship. I have rolled big boulders down his banks and I felt my first big boulders in a caravan at his feet.
For all of us who live here it is our mountain Mauao and it's as big as the BroBlacks that took the morning light out of the Lions last Saturday in Hamilton. Ma te wa.